To my surprise, my "default installation" of Solaris 10 that seems to install every known package in the world (who needs Firefox on a server?!?!) does not include "sudo." Apparently, it's on the Companion DVD or available for download from
http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/freeware/
There are also a couple interesting twists with the default package install. One is that the package is installed in /opt/sfw. This includes the sudoers file, which is located and read from /opt/sfw/etc/. In my opinion, this is a pain, because it doesn't put sudo or visudo in the normal default $PATH=/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/sbin. I ended up creating symlinks for /etc/sudoers, /usr/bin/sudo, and /usr/sbin/visudo to the appropriate locations in /opt/sfw.
Another strange twist is that after the install, you need to chmod the sudo command with "chmod 4111 sudo" because Solaris doesn't inherently trust the package and it's files. This is another annoyance, since obviously anyone installing sudo had to take extra steps to do so in the first place and obviously already trusts its integrity.
Chalk up another reason why I like Linux over Solaris.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
VMware startup problems (511 error)
I've been struggling over a day trying to get VMware Server to successfully install on my Windows XP Pro SP3 laptop. Every time I tried to open the console and connect to local host, I would get the error
"511 Error connecting to "C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Server\vmserverdWin32.exe" process"
I also would see errors in the Event Log (Application and Security) as well. The Application log would complain about vmauthd, and "Failed to impersonate vmware user".
Searching through Google, I'd see some issues that didn't exactly pertain to mine. One post said "if this doesn't work, you're going to have to reinstall Windows." I noticed some posts mentioned having to start the Net Logon service, and noticed I didn't have that in my Services. Searching about "Net Logon" missing, it says that the Client for Microsoft Networks needs to be installed with your network interface. I look at my network interface properties, and there was no Client for Microsoft Networks!
After adding the client to my network interface, my VMware console now starts up. I'm not sure if it's worth replying my solution to the VMware Community thread, since the last update was March 2007. However, I'll post this to the blog and hopefully Google will index it for the next poor admin that is banging his head over this.
"511 Error connecting to "C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Server\vmserverdWin32.exe" process"
I also would see errors in the Event Log (Application and Security) as well. The Application log would complain about vmauthd, and "Failed to impersonate vmware user".
Searching through Google, I'd see some issues that didn't exactly pertain to mine. One post said "if this doesn't work, you're going to have to reinstall Windows." I noticed some posts mentioned having to start the Net Logon service, and noticed I didn't have that in my Services. Searching about "Net Logon" missing, it says that the Client for Microsoft Networks needs to be installed with your network interface. I look at my network interface properties, and there was no Client for Microsoft Networks!
After adding the client to my network interface, my VMware console now starts up. I'm not sure if it's worth replying my solution to the VMware Community thread, since the last update was March 2007. However, I'll post this to the blog and hopefully Google will index it for the next poor admin that is banging his head over this.
Adding FeedBurner support
Out of curiousity of what it actually does and what additional benefits it provides, I've set up "The Bungling Sys Admin" in FeedBurner. I haven't figured out why people use this service, but curiosity killed the cat. Hopefully it won't "break" my blog. Feel free to comment about your experiences with FeedBurner, why you use it or don't use it, and if it made anything go awry with this blog.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Mounting Mac formatted drives from Windows
I unfortunately no longer have a Mac, since it was owned by my previous employer. Shortsightedly, I had bought music from iTunes on the Mac and formatted my iPod for Mac as well. When I plug my iPod in now, iTunes for Windows wants to reformat my iPod, and of course I don't have a backup of my purchased music.
I've found this free utility called HFSExplorer that lets you mount Mac formatted drives via Windows XP and maybe other Windows OS's. Right now, I'm copying my music from my iPod to my Windows XP laptop at home. I do notice that iPods format their drives differently and the naming convention doesn't allow me to know what I'm copying over. I'm hoping my music is still ID tagged so that iTunes will rename it and sort it correctly. I'll post a comment to this post if it's fully successful.
I've found this free utility called HFSExplorer that lets you mount Mac formatted drives via Windows XP and maybe other Windows OS's. Right now, I'm copying my music from my iPod to my Windows XP laptop at home. I do notice that iPods format their drives differently and the naming convention doesn't allow me to know what I'm copying over. I'm hoping my music is still ID tagged so that iTunes will rename it and sort it correctly. I'll post a comment to this post if it's fully successful.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Update on useful UNIX tools for Win32
A co-worker sent out this link that has ways to "turbocharge" PuTTY.
Finally looks like I can get my tabbed SSH/terminal sessions. It also mentions puttycyg (affirmation, baby!).
UPDATE (8/29/2008 10:33 EDT):
My comments so far trying out tabbed putty/ssh sessions.
- It doesn't look like PuttyCM supports Puttycyg, which is disappointing. If you use the original putty.exe, it does seem to work how I'd want it to.
- The Putty sessions aren't rolled up into the Putty Tabs program (they still show individually in my taskbar). This doesn't improve my workspace much.
Finally looks like I can get my tabbed SSH/terminal sessions. It also mentions puttycyg (affirmation, baby!).
UPDATE (8/29/2008 10:33 EDT):
My comments so far trying out tabbed putty/ssh sessions.
- It doesn't look like PuttyCM supports Puttycyg, which is disappointing. If you use the original putty.exe, it does seem to work how I'd want it to.
- The Putty sessions aren't rolled up into the Putty Tabs program (they still show individually in my taskbar). This doesn't improve my workspace much.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Unhappy with Red Hat
Right now, I'm not happy with Red Hat. At least not with their sales department.
My group is interested in the capabilities of Red Hat Satellite Server, so I was going to try to obtain a trial license and download it. As far as I know, we don't have any RHEL licenses in our department. I'm sure somewhere in the company we do, since we have thousands of employees, but I sincerely doubt I'll be able to track that account down, and even then, doubt I can use it for access to the Red Hat Network. So, I applied for a trial license of RHEL and was hoping through that entry into RHN, I could also get a trial of Satellite Server. I still couldn't find that as a download, so I've made a couple of attempts to submit requests through their website on how I could evaluate their Satellite Server. No response. I would think sales people would jump at the chance to talk to a warm body that offered up their contact information.
I know there's Spacewalk, and I am interested in that. Unfortunately, it's only supported on RHEL5 compatible OS's. Our standard hasn't included RHEL5 yet; and they aren't open to "exceptions".
Any suggestions? Are there other resale vendors I could talk to that would let me have a 30 day evaluation to download and run Satellite for RHEL4?
My group is interested in the capabilities of Red Hat Satellite Server, so I was going to try to obtain a trial license and download it. As far as I know, we don't have any RHEL licenses in our department. I'm sure somewhere in the company we do, since we have thousands of employees, but I sincerely doubt I'll be able to track that account down, and even then, doubt I can use it for access to the Red Hat Network. So, I applied for a trial license of RHEL and was hoping through that entry into RHN, I could also get a trial of Satellite Server. I still couldn't find that as a download, so I've made a couple of attempts to submit requests through their website on how I could evaluate their Satellite Server. No response. I would think sales people would jump at the chance to talk to a warm body that offered up their contact information.
I know there's Spacewalk, and I am interested in that. Unfortunately, it's only supported on RHEL5 compatible OS's. Our standard hasn't included RHEL5 yet; and they aren't open to "exceptions".
Any suggestions? Are there other resale vendors I could talk to that would let me have a 30 day evaluation to download and run Satellite for RHEL4?
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Cron entry mistakes
This mistake came at the expense of one of my old co-workers, who decided to share this with me over Instant Messenger. I got a good laugh at his misfortune. He wanted to set up a cron job that would restart a poorly performing service every 6 hours. This is the cron entry he added.
* */6 * * * service_restart.sh
The lead developer, whose app depends on that service, came up to him wondering why his app was having outages. What my colleague should have configured was
0 */6 * * * service_restart.sh
His cron entry was restarting the service every 6 hours, and then restarting it every minute for an hour during that sixth hour. Brilliant! Although I guess I shouldn't throw stones in glass houses.
* */6 * * * service_restart.sh
The lead developer, whose app depends on that service, came up to him wondering why his app was having outages. What my colleague should have configured was
0 */6 * * * service_restart.sh
His cron entry was restarting the service every 6 hours, and then restarting it every minute for an hour during that sixth hour. Brilliant! Although I guess I shouldn't throw stones in glass houses.
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